Tagged: comics

Heroes Con Roundup: Capes Dominate, Wieringo Remembered, DC Dishes

  • News
  • June 23, 2008

As I’m writing this, Heroes Con 2008 hasn’t quite wrapped up. I had to shuttle back to Atlanta to get ready for the day job Monday morning, so I missed out on a handful of interesting-sounding Sunday panels.

Friday and Saturday held plenty of excitement, intrigue and interest, though, so let’s go through what went down:

In case you didn’t read the update in my coverage of Friday’s State of the Industry panel, Mark Waid and Erik Larsen were just joking about bringing John Byrne on for Boom! Studios’ Farscape book. I didn’t make that clear enough, as it started a short-lived rumor around the ‘Net.

That panel had a few other moments of interest, including Waid saying the comics delivery system "sucks" and is "catastrophic." Dan DiDio also admitted to "cannibalizing" current comics readers through variant covers and the like.

But the line of the day came when Erik Larsen said webcomics "look like crap." Waid responded: "You’re 45. I don’t care what you think. I care what a 12-year-old thinks." Still, no one offered any good ideas on making the jump to electronically delivered comics.

Saturday had a lot of good panels. Too many, in fact, as I missed out on Disney’s panel on The Kingdom, its new comics publishing venture. Anyone attend that?

(more…)

Original Hulk Concept Art, Character Designer Interviewed

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  • June 22, 2008

The Incredible Hulk is still smashing away in theaters, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep playing the "What If?" game with the Green Goliath’s latest big-screen rampage.

Over at XSI Base, Incredible Hulk character designer Aaron Sims discusses some of the creative decisions made while conceiving the look of the latest Hulk — as well as his nemesis, Abomination. Here, Sims addresses the difference between Abomination of the comics world and his big-screen counterpart:

The Abomination went many different directions. Some at the beginning were closer to the comic, but everyone felt it didn’t make sense to what happening in the movie. They wanting it to look like it was growing from within and the bones and muscle would break through the skin.

While it’s a fun read, the real treat in this article is the gallery of early designs for both characters, including the frightening Hulk seen here:

Head over to XSI Base for more design images and the rest of the interview.

 

(via Cinematical)

 

iPhone: Your New Comic Shop?

  • News
  • June 22, 2008

iphone3g-8536299Ever since the Apple iPhone’s debut, tech-minded comic fans discussed it as the ideal platform to read comics in the 21st century. When your friends talk about it, it’s utopia dreaming. When the suits talk about it — especially if they can make money — it’s a step closer to becoming reality.

A recent Reuters story detailed how the downloadable cell phone comic business could explode in Japan when the Apple iPhone debuts there for the first time on July 11th. Manga have caused the mobile publication market to double in the last year to a $204 million business. The iPhone would allow for even more natural reading of comic pages, with a large screen, the ability to zoom on different panels, and turn pages. The latest version of the iPhone will be cheaper, faster, and most importantly, include 3G technology for faster Internet connections. With an emerging business model already in place and ideal technology being introduced, a "perfect storm" for cell comics could emerge.

If cell phone comics become successful overseas, expect American comics to follow the trend. With print publishing continually under pressure, don’t be surprised if the big four comic publishers in the U.S. start meeting with Apple (if they’re not already) to have digital comics offered in the App Store.

Superman on your iPhone might even make reading comics chic.

‘Punisher: War Zone’ Director Discusses Film Trailer

  • News
  • June 22, 2008

Punisher: War Zone director Lexi Alexander recently weighed in on the trailer for the film that was released last week, and she was surprisingly frank about her assessment of the final cut.

She wrote on her website:

I’m not sure what kind of impression I would get from this trailer if I didn’t actually know the film. I am utterly impressed, though, they managed to find that much PG rated action footage at all. It had to be a challenge to cut a trailer from our action stuff without showing any gore and blood.

I’ve been told that you can’t even show heads blowing up in red-band trailers. I hope that’s not true because that would suck. It’s weird to see Castle shoot all those bullets and not see the thugs who are catching them. That’s the best fucking part about it!!!

Alexander also admitted that she was as surprised as anyone else to see the trailer, and addressed some of the Punisher faithful’s cricisims of the peek they received into the film.

Real crime stories and comic books are two different worlds for me. It was my first priority to please The Punisher comic book fans and with all the respect to two wonderful actors, I wasn’t trying to become a member of the Dolph Lundgren or Thomas Jane fan club.

Read the rest of her thoughts on the trailer and fans’ response to it over on her website. Punisher: War Zone is scheduled for a December 5 release.

(via Cinematical)

Every Day is Kids Day! by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • June 21, 2008

One of the things I learned at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival (aside from the fact that New York firefighters remain the world’s most awesome) is that independent, alternative cartoonists embrace the children’s market. This was evident not only in the major publishing launch of Francoise Mouly’s TOON Books, but also the work of a lot of young people with their self-published titles.

This may seem like a stupidly obvious thing to say from anyone who has watched the market for children’s books, graphic novels, and other kinds of mass media. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to apply to most comic book stores.

When I worked at DC, the typical story about comics had the headline, “Biff! Bam! Pow! Comics Aren’t Just for Kids Anymore!” My boss explained to me, in great detail, why there was no need to make comics that children under 12 would enjoy. The success of Vertigo – Sandman in particular – meant there was a profitable market for comics among college-educated, affluent adults, especially to advertisers.

This was true, as far as it went. Good books can be good marketing. Sandman continues to make a lot of money for DC, even though there haven’t been new stories for several years. I have no doubt that many people for whom Sandman was their first comic went on to read lots of other comics by lots of other writers, artists and publishers. (more…)

Bill Watterson on Richard Thompson and ‘Cul De Sac’

  • News
  • June 20, 2008

cdscover-4020322I already knew that Richard Thompson’s Cul De Sac was a damn fine comic, but it’s nice to have someone like Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, confirm that assessment.

Watterson has provided the foreword for the upcoming collection of Thompson’s popular series, titled Cul De Sac: This Exit. According to Thompson, Watterson’s words "made me blush so hard I got a nosebleed."

Here’s an excerpt from the foreword:

I also like the nightmarish suburb that the Otterloop ("outer loop") family inhabits: the identical houses crammed in endless rows, the relentless highway traffic strangling the soulless development, the ugly shopping malls, the oppressive parking garages, and sticky-floored restaurants. Like most of us, the family negotiates this modern awfulness as a simple matter of course; the critique appears only in the drawings, where the strip suddenly works on another level.

The full text is available at amazon.com. The collection is scheduled for release this September.

(via TheDailyCartoonist)

ComicMix Radio: The Hulk’s Kid Goes Hollywood!

So you were pleasantly surprised at The Incredible Hulk, and you still can’t shake that ending to Battlestar: Galactica. There is nothing better to do than plunge on with this week’s latest batch of new comics and DVDs, plus: 

 
• Skarr Son Of Hulk gets a movie tie-in
• Robotech gets a screen writer
• Bottle o’ wine for ol’ Green Skin
 
So was that really Earth? Wait!  Don’t dwell on that…  just Press the Button!

 

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-2888416 or RSS!

Review: In Odd We Trust by Dean Koontz & Queenie Chan

In Odd We Trust
Created by Dean Koontz; Written by Queenie Chan & Dean Koontz; Illustrations by Queenie Chan
Del Rey, July 2008, $10.95

Odd Thomas, in a series of (so far) four novels from Dean Koontz, is a twenty-year-old fry cook in the small desert town of Pico Mundo, California. He has a tough girlfriend – Stormy Llewellyn, orphan and gun-slinging amateur detective – a great way with pancakes, many friends in town, and a secret: he can see the dead. The dead never talk, but they do find ways to communicate with Odd, and to get him to help them.

[[[In Odd We Trust]]] takes place when Odd is nineteen; it’s a prequel to the novels. Very early on, in a scene reminiscent of the great amateur “consulting detectives” stretching back to Sherlock, the local police chief, Wyatt Porter, comes to ask Odd for help. Joey Gordon, a seven-year-old, was killed brutally in a home invasion during the fifteen minutes between being dropped off after school by a neighbor and the arrival of his housekeeper/nanny. The killer left a cryptic note, made up of letters cut out of magazines, but no normal clues.

The police are baffled, as they so often are in stories like this. Sometimes I think the police exist in fiction merely to be baffled while the much smarter and more skilled amateurs do their legwork for them, and then sweep in at the end to do the actual arresting.

(more…)

Happy Birthday: Frank Thorne

  • News
  • June 16, 2008

300px-red_sonja_1-6319757Born in 1930, Frank Thorne got his comic book start penciling romance comics for Standard Comics in 1948. He then went on to draw the Perry Mason newspaper strip for King Features and to work on several comic books for Dell, including Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and The Green Hornet.

In 1975 Thorne went to work for Marvel, drawing the character Red Sonja for Marvel Feature. He created her distinctive look as the beautiful redheaded barbarian in the chainmail bikini, and was the artist when she moved to her own series. In 1978 Thorne left Red Sonja and created his own warrior-woman comic, Ghita of Alizzar.

Since then he has worked for Fantagraphics, Heavy Metal, Comico, National Lampoon, and others, though he is perhaps best known for the Moonshine McJugs comic he created for Playboy Magazine. In 1963 he won the National Cartoonists Society award, and he has also won both an Inkpot and a Playboy Editorial Award.

Random Video: Dog Vs. Robot

  • News
  • June 15, 2008

What happens when a pet owner finds her dog constantly attacking her robotic vacuum? She assures him the machine is on notice by chastising the little bot in front of him.

 

 

While it doesn’t have much to do with comics, this was too good not to share. Want a comics angle? Go read Grant Morrison and frank Quitely’s We3.

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